Comments on: The Great Leap Backward! How FUTA Met Its Intellectual Nandikadal http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/
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By: aloy http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/comment-page-1/#comment-27005
Sun, 14 Oct 2012 13:35:56 +0000http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/?p=26323#comment-27005Dham,
What you are telling may be true. FEAP converted from mainframe to work on PCs. But they did it in the uni and I got my copy through one professor at Peradeniya in 1988. It appears they now have something called GRASS, that means they have been continuosly at it. That is exactly what I would like our unies to do; work on it consistently. Those days mainframes were very slow. In 1971 I did a stair case from ground floor to first floor and that mainframe ran for 45 minutes to give me a result and a two inch thick stack of punch cards. Now I can do the analysis of a 30 storeyed reinforced concrete building in a few seconds and with a package like CSC Orion you can generate the working drawings and Bill of Quantities (BOQ) also at the same time. I offered a cracked version of that package for trial to the professor I referred to above. The original costs around Rs. 3.5 million now

Yes, Fortran is very old, but it has the best number crunching ability out of all languages even today. If I am not mistaken it is a dotNET languge too. and supported by Microsofts newest technology. Therefore it is used in solving of engineering problems which involves lot of mathematical calculation including partial differential equation etc. That is what Prof Sam Karu tried to do instead of just adding 2 and 3 at the first Fortran lecture in SEC.

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By: Dham http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/comment-page-1/#comment-26994
Sun, 14 Oct 2012 10:07:11 +0000http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/?p=26323#comment-26994Aloy,
I too was at a “uni in Thailand” you mentioned and FEAP( which we used there generally together with much better ones) was a program given in the back of a book from Prof. Zienkiewicz. MicroFeap ( I still have it) is nothing but FEAP coverted from mainframe to normal computers. So, forget about Uni in Thailand – it is not much better , if not worse than Moratuwa.

Not sure who uses Fortran now, even though it is the only language I know. I worte one of the “world’s first package” for a praticular use in FORTRAN but did not have time, support and money to convert it to “micro computers”, as I went back to beloved Sri lanka for good and got caught at the time of IPKF and JVP nonsence, wasting valuable 2-3 years. By that time one professor in USA ( a lebanese fellow) started selling a slightly better one !

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By: aloy http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/comment-page-1/#comment-26927
Sat, 13 Oct 2012 03:29:33 +0000http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/?p=26323#comment-26927I want to deviate a little bit from this thread to highlight the importance of using modern technology (which actually should be initiated by the academics). In 1970 our country had a mainframe computer installed at the State Engineering Corporation which was shared by the Central Bank. Prof. Sam Karunaratne was its head. By that time he had done his PhD and even written a book on Fortran programming, a programming language widely used even today in Science and Engineering. That was the formative years of digital era that started in places like Bell Labs in US (presently AT&T). Why did’n he made an effort to popularise software devlopment among engineers?. I remember he made a half hearted attempt, but it never went beyond the first lecture. That was the time IT could have got rooted in SL. India started much later and is way ahead.
Few years later uni students in Thailand developed a packgage called Microfeap and was widely used for design of structures in the region including Sri Lanka. They go on to develop new packages even today. Why cannot our professors do similar things here?. they do not even have a subject for computer programming in our engineering courses. Recently I spoke to a uni professor in SL regarding the use of software packages in engineering and also told him that our country seems to be lagging behind in this area a bit and requested time to give my inputs with regard to what ever little experience I have gained overseas. I haven’t got an invitation for a discussion up to now.
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By: mjaya http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/comment-page-1/#comment-26924
Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:55:31 +0000http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/?p=26323#comment-26924In another recent development, the Supreme Court has rejected the petition against SAITM.

Way to go!!

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By: mjaya http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/comment-page-1/#comment-26923
Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:54:49 +0000http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/?p=26323#comment-26923I think its enough humor against the Federation of Useless Tertiary Academics. They have been the butt end of all jokes of the nation for long enough.

Lets look at positive ways of improving our education system.
1. Abolish the year 5 scholarship.
2. Have more emphasis on practical subjects like agriculture, carpentry etc. Teaching agriculture will encourage people to grow at least some Manioc at home.
3. Scrap this useless leadership training
4. For to be medical students have them work as voluteers in an orphanage for 6 months and home for the elderly for 6 months. Make it mandatory, then we will end up with a health service with compassionate doctors!

Any suggestions?

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By: mjaya http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/comment-page-1/#comment-26922
Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:29:17 +0000http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/?p=26323#comment-26922Nirmal Devasiri is one of the main proponents of the Tamil homeland myth.

All of them should not be demoted, they should be kicked out of state universities.

The “Save State Education” was nothing more than a concoction to hoodwink the public. The only thing state education needs saving from is incompetent teachers like those of FUTA.

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By: aloy http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/comment-page-1/#comment-26903
Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:00:19 +0000http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/?p=26323#comment-26903What is the noteworthy contribution our Dons have made to the country or themselves?. There are no Sri Lankan academics who have caught the world attention. It appears non of them return home to continue their work. In the west and Japan (where our Dons prefer to go for PhD) it is the Dons who win Nobel prizes for science and medicine by continuing their work. It is the university fraternity in US that helped shape the digital era and because of that, US is in the forefront of technological development.
GOSL should devise a scheme which will evaluate the research work done by them and give salary increase or demotions accordingly.
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By: Susantha Wijesinghe http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/10/11/the-great-leap-backward-how-futa-met-its-intellectual-nandikadal/comment-page-1/#comment-26900
Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:06:08 +0000http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/?p=26323#comment-26900I REMEMBER SEEING IN THE NEWS THAT THE TAMIL LTTE DI-AS-PARIAHS, PAID THREE MONTHS SALARIES TO THESE ” SHAMELESS, BRAINLESS, STRIKING DONS. ”

THE GOVERNMENT MUST SEEK THE SOURCE THAT PAID THEM, POSSIBLY AN NGO. THEY MUST BE KICKED OUT.